


write what you know

by skiaphilia



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, I'm not tagging the KH/Disney/etc stuff in this because it would be buckwild, M/M, all these two do is banter and i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 09:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17547278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiaphilia/pseuds/skiaphilia
Summary: By the still-strange “digital” clock on his nightstand, Devar had gone to bed approximately two hours previous, around midnight. By all rights not only he but everyone within the bright white walls of the castle should be asleep, but, he comes to realize as he blinks awake, a mild voice calls his name from the doorway.“What,” he says, turning away and mashing his pillow over his ears, “do you want, Lem King.”Months after settling into their new home, Lem intercepts a distress signal; Devar is along for the ride, for better or for worse. A Friends at the Table Kingdom Hearts AU.





	1. Disney Castle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aubades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aubades/gifts).



> I am so glad that other people are also into Lem/Devar, and I saw on your twitter something about writing Kingdom Hearts for this, and I "accidentally" wrote 7500 words of it. Thank you so much for this Freedom. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Rated T for uhhhh cursing.

Devar has never been the earliest to rise of the Archivists; in fact, without a steaming mug of coffee and some ‘morning me time,’ as he puts it, it is rare to see him out of bed before the afternoon light filters through his window. The apocalypse, of course, changed his schedule somewhat–evacuating first your home, then your continent, then your _planet_ for fear for your life will get a man out of bed–but since things in Disney Castle are much less dire on the whole, adjusting to new dimensional time zones aside, he’d been allowed to sleep in.

Well, usually.

By the still-strange “digital” clock on his nightstand, Devar had gone to bed approximately two hours previous, around midnight. By all rights not only he but everyone within the bright white walls of the castle should be asleep, but, he comes to realize as he blinks awake, a mild voice calls his name from the doorway.

“What,” he says, turning away and mashing his pillow over his ears, “do you want, Lem King.” He’s cut Lem off mid-plaintive stage whisper; he at least has the decency to seem sheepish, when, after an awkward pause, Devar hauls himself back around and faces Lem with bleary eyes.

“Uh–hi. Morning, good morning,” Lem starts, like it’s ten in the morning and he can undo this and have a normal conversation. He closes the door behind him, which is also quite considerate, as the folks down the hall will be unable to hear Devar beat his ass. “Sorry to bother you, but–”

“Are you–are you sorry, though, man?” Devar tosses the pillow vaguely in Lem’s direction and struggles into a sitting position, star-patterned blanket pooled around his waist. “I feel like you’re always saying you’re sorry, to everyone, but you just keep pulling the same shit.” It comes out a little meaner than he means it to, but he thinks he did intend it to be kind of mean, because again, it is the middle of the night.

Lem, to his credit (or perhaps as a testament to his social density), doesn’t even flinch. “Yes, well–sorry about that, too, I just–something’s happening.”

“At two in the fuckin’ morning?–Cripes, dude, turn on the light, I can’t see.” And Devar isn’t giving Lem the satisfaction of getting out of bed himself to do it. Getting out of bed would mean that he is taking part in whatever this is, and, without very good reason, he is not.

He obediently flicks on the light and the first thing Devar notices is that somehow he managed to catch the thrown pillow, is still clutching it half-heartedly to his chest. Though dressed, nominally, the signs of recent sleep are still about him; his hair, normally in a practical bun, falls frizzy and loose around his face, eyes heavy-lidded, belt haphazardly strapped on over an open vest. The part of Devar that can’t stand being angry for long, not even at Lem, wants for a moment to brush his hair back, straighten him up a little so he doesn’t look quite so ragged, but the rest of him holds that part back.  “Okay. Um–you can,” he says, “sit down. Chair right there. Gimme my pillow back.”

Lem sits on the bed. He crosses the room–past the desk with aforementioned chair, infuriating as ever–and places the pillow gingerly in Devar’s hands. Devar, long-suffering, sighs and wedges it behind him quickly, then scrubs a hand over his face like he can wipe the sight of Lem away. “Alright, what’s up?”

“The–it’s the box,” Lem says. “My communication box. It seems to have picked up a message meant for the King, somehow, and it woke me…” he wrings his hands in his lap, looking askance at Devar. “I wouldn’t have woken you up if I didn’t think it was important, I promise you.”

“Yes, you would have,” Devar mutters, though now, seeing Lem so nervous, it lacks bite. “What’s… what’s the deal? Did anyone else–?” There were still quite a lot of people unaccounted for, after the fall of Hieron to The Heat and the… well, the Darkness. A few hundred, tops, had woken up in an unfamiliar land called Traverse Town, where they’d received a whirlwind orientation and been shoved off to various other worlds to live new lives. For the Archivists, this meant a training course under a cricket called Jiminy to be Professional Hero’s Journey Scribes, people who tagged along on adventures and recorded the things, places, and individuals on new worlds, as well as their charge’s deeds, for posterity.

“It wasn’t about Hieron,” Lem replies, a little too quick. He notices the way Devar’s shoulders slump–his father, for one, is still unaccounted for–and says “I–sorry. Again. Should have specified. It seems to be a distress signal from a spacefaring vessel on a nearby world. The person on the other end seems to have had the King’s personal line, but didn’t know about the box, so it was intercepted…”

Lem glances sidelong at Devar, then the window, and while he may be genuinely sorry about getting his hopes up Devar notices a dangerous glimmer in Lem’s eyes. “You’re not thinking about answering it, are you?”

He chews his lip.

“Dude–dude, no.” Devar pushes his hands through his hair, hoping that the look he shoots Lem is properly incredulous, given the situation. “We’re not supposed to be doing stuff like that here! We’re laying low! Letting other people do the dirty work and,” he says, grabbing Lem’s shoulder, shaking him gently, “ _writing it down_. The dangerous shit you did on Hieron ain’t gonna fly here.”

“No, see, it’s perfect,” he says, placing his hand over Devar’s, animated all of the sudden in the face of a point to debate. _In another life,_ Devar thinks wryly, _he’d make a pretty good lawyer. “You_ don’t have to fight, Devar, and maybe there won’t be any fighting at all, but–I’ll go and check it out, and you can record the way we’re meant to, it–people are in danger, and it could be a good chance to, um, stretch our legs, so to speak…”

“Why do you always have to be the hero?” asks Devar. “Hieron’s gone. We’re not under attack. Why do you feel the need to actively seek out the same bullshit and stick your neck out for people you don’t even know? What are you,  _bored_?”

“A little,” Lem admits. His face is completely serious, at which Devar barks out a laugh.

“Right,” he says. “You’re bored, so you’re–I bet you’ve been waiting for the box to pick up something like this–you’re dragging me out of our  _stable living environment, in the middle of the night,_ to come help you save some complete stranger’s day?”

“Yes.”

In the artificially-warm light of Devar’s bedroom, Devar can see a lot of things. There’s the low bookshelf in the corner, with a couple of salvaged Hieronian hide-bound novels (the only books he had on him, at the end, stuffed in his bag for leisure reading) and a slowly-growing fresh stack of castle library materials and traded books from off-world. A few more sit on the painted sky-blue desk, along with half of his own most recent manuscript and scattered writing materials perched precariously on the edge. Clothes lay strewn on the carpeted floor, because Devar hardly expects company in his quarters, much less so late. On one hand, this feels comfortable; it’s the first real home they’ve had in ages.

On the other...

Lem King sits at the edge of the bed, and while the glitter in his eyes is dangerous, it’s full of possibility, too. Devar thinks about the fact that people really could be in danger. He thinks about the fact that Lem could be in danger, if he goes alone, and that of everyone–of his usual travel companions, of any of the beefcakes who’d made it out of Hieron, out of the  _stray god_ –he’d chosen to sneak into Devar’s room, to ask him to come along.

He thinks about his novel, gone stagnant.

“Fine,” Devar says, pushing himself off the bed and leaving a blanket trail streaming out behind him. “Just so you know, this isn’t an endorsement of your behavior, but I’m also kinda bored, so… fine.” He picks up a shirt off the floor.

Lem doesn’t move, just stares. The two of them make eye contact, Devar from an odd, bent-over angle as he gathers something resembling an outfit.

“Uh, bud, I’m gonna need you to get out of here if you want me to get dressed.”

“Oh! Oh. Right.”

***

It turns out that the acquisition of a ride off-world isn’t going to be as difficult as Devar imagined–unlike Hieron, where everything felt sharp, hostile, most people generally believe you’re at Disney Castle to do good. It also turns out that Lem spent some time with the mechanics, recently, taking down notes and sketches in the hours not filled with training and banal transcription under Jiminy’s watchful eye. He’d stuffed some trail mix in one of his many pockets before leaving, which made it easy to get Chip and Dale to let them “take a tour of” one of the Gummi ships for “research.”

The ship is on the smaller side, seating three with a back area for storage, and primarily meant for short-term passenger travel; it’s called the _First Light_ , and, judging from its austere design, must be Hella and Hadrian’s custom ship, the one they’d been working on since they knew what a Gummi ship was. _Hope it comes back in one piece; otherwise, our asses are grass, man._

“Do you know how to pilot this thing?” Devar asks, settling into the chair right of center, legs tucked neatly under him. _Advantage to being on the smaller side–not having to sit properly in a human chair,_ he thinks, watching Lem fidget in the high-backed captain’s chair.

He fingers one of the knobs in front of him, steel with a merry-looking orange ball on the end. “I’ve, uh, read the manuals.” The technology still feels foreign to Devar even after an adjustment period of several months; it was quite the culture shock to arrive and see that the most mundane of creatures had mastered not only space, but inter-dimensional travel, and that they were in fact considered experts in the field. (Throndir took it rather in stride. Being The Former Ranger, he’s weird about stuff like that.)

“So… I’ll take that as a no,” Devar replies, passing his hand over his eyes. “You’ve planned this daring rescue mission and we don’t even know how to get off the ground.”

A strangled laugh works its way out of Lem’s throat and he jerks to look over at Devar. “Hey, I–I know how this works in theory! It’s powered by smiles!”

“By…”

“Smiles, yes, I know, but y’know, when in Nacre,” he babbles, holding his hands up in a defensive position. “I suppose the ship is attuned to the emotional energy of its passengers, and, well, it’s a great security system, when you think about it–a kidnapped individual isn’t going to be able to smile, and if that’s the case the ship won’t be able to get off the ground–”

“Dude,” Devar says, “I don’t think _we’re_ gonna be able to get off the ground, and you somehow managed to convince me to come willingly. Not in a smilin’ mood.”

“Could you fake it?”

“Could I–what? No!” Devar sports a full-fledged frown as he rises from his seat. “I’ve barely slept, I don’t really wanna be here, and you’re telling me you want me to fake smiling to go to what could possibly be our own deaths? What the fuck?”

For a moment, Lem offers no response but a strained, clearly forced smile, and then he sees the look on Devar’s face. “See? It’s not–it’s not that hard–wait, okay, I have another idea.” He rises himself and moves quickly to the back of the ship, rummaging through their strapped-down luggage until he finds his guitar. “We could make this a little more… fun? Palatable, at least?”

“Fun,” Devar repeats; he sinks back down with a groan. “Sure. Whatever. Hit me.”

“Can you sing?”

Devar considers the question. Lem’s the bard, here–gifted with musical talent of multiple sorts, as evidenced by how quickly he picked up the guitar from square one–but… “A little. Not my wheelhouse, but everyone’s gotta put on a bathtime concert once in a while, right?”

Lem flashes him a quick grin then, genuine, and the  _First Light_ hums underneath them for a brief second. “Did you ever study Morbash’s  _Modern Ballads: Collected Edition_?” Settled back into his chair, he ducks his head to focus on tuning the guitar slightly, plucking a string here or there and turning the knobs.

“Uh, yeah, that’s kiddie stuff. Got half of ‘em memorized,” he responds.

“I’ll play, and you can sing, and we can pass the time,” Lem says simply, strumming a familiar chord once satisfied with the guitar’s sound. “I’ve already entered the coordinates for the autopilot, so our only worry is the power supply. If you’re still feeling poorly about this after that, you can go back to bed and I’ll do this on my own, or–find someone else. How’s that sound?”

The request is surprisingly sincere–even a little vulnerable of him, judging by the way he continues to fiddle with the guitar even knowing that it’s tuned serviceably, plucking the strings in aborted half-melodies and avoiding looking Devar in the eye. He doesn’t seem to play much recreationally, after… well, Devar’s not sure after _what_ , he just knows that Lem isn’t as loose with his music as he used to be. A strand of hair pops out of Lem’s messily-constructed bun and falls to frame his face; he looks so caught between concentration and anxiety that Devar just sighs. “I… don’t think I’ll be able to get back to sleep, anyway. Yeah.”

Lem startles when Devar assents, meets his eyes again, and Devar wonders what it is about Lem King he can’t say no to these days. “Wait, really?”

“Don’t make me change my mind,” he warns, but there’s a teasing edge to the words now. He, unfortunately, does not seem to be going anywhere.

Lem nods in return and plucks the opening chord to a song they both know well–”Uh, easy start, this, it’s–”

“ _ _Light at the Mark."__

“ _Light at–_ ah, yeah.” Lem flashes him another grin and the Gummi ship turns a few of the dashboard lights on. “One, two…”

Quiet at first, hoarse, Devar joins in on cue.

 _A monument to old Hieron,_  
_The Mark of the Erasure_  
_Sits like untreated scarred flesh,_  
_Our world’s most glaring failure,_

 _But even through the bitter cold_  
_And through the sour air,_  
_There’s light in the Erasure, still,_  
_In people bold and fair…_

By the middle of the song, as it swells into rousing refrain, both of them are leaning forward in their seats, incredulous looks (Devar can sing? _This is kinda fun?_ ) melting into unabashed smiles. Were Devar looking anywhere else, he’d see the way the overhead lights flicker into full strength, how the console hums to life in front of them as the Gummi ship becomes one hundred percent operational in time to their duet.

His attention, however, is focused somewhere else entirely.

The song flourishes to a finish, finally, and Devar, a little out of breath, breaks eye contact with Lem; he pushes his shoulders against the hard back of the chair to create distance between the two of them. If he wasn’t fully awake before, he certainly is now. Of course, not wanting to disrupt the apparent operation of the _First Light_ _,_ now that it’s in gear, he doesn’t drop his smile. It softens to something shyer. “I, uh…”

“It worked!” Spell broken, Lem’s turned triumphantly to the softly-beeping, glowing console, out the window to the garage bay. “Okay, um, we–we have to act fast, here, no telling when Chip and Dale are going to be done that snack, let’s… let’s set off, and–thank you,” he says, casting a quick glance in Devar’s direction. “We should… we should do that again. Soon.”

“Yeah,” he replies, faint. “We… we might need to refuel, uh, so to speak. Before we get where we’re going. Actually–where are we going?”

Silhouetted by the lights of the _First Light_ , sitting stark against the black of space behind the fast-opening garage door, Lem only smiles wider. He doesn’t look nervous any more.


	2. Treasure Planet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Devar learns to be a little more like Lem. Lem learns very little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T for uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Treasure Planet

The journey takes several hours, at least half of which Devar spends dozing uncomfortably with his head pillowed on his shoulder. Before that, Lem relays the full story– the message seems to have been sent by one Dr. Delbert Doppler, financier of an expedition to a place called Treasure Planet. (“A little on the nose,” Devar says, and Lem huffs a laugh before continuing to read.) It’s a short signal, listing their approximate location, “POTENTIAL HEARTLESS SIGHTINGS INDICATIVE OF IMPENDING COMPLICATIONS,” and “WATCH OUT FOR MALEFICENT,” before the Doctor’s cordial signature and an all-caps request for help.

The world itself doesn’t seem to be too far from the one they’re staying on; Lem consulted the maps before waking Devar earlier and the autopilot is smooth, though occasionally he slowed the ship down manually to point out a star, another planet in the distance, Devar, take notes, look! Bleary though he is, Devar is, first and foremost, an Archivist, and so scribbles eager gibberish about the scenery in shaky hand into a small notebook.

Lem says Chip and Dale warned him that they interstellar passageways were notoriously dangerous, crowded with Heartless ships and the like, but oddly enough, there isn’t a blip on the radar nearly the entire flight, just gray-shrouded other worlds and the dim light of stars in the distance. Like most long transit rides, Devar finds himself lulled, until Lem pulls him to the window once again.

The planet isn’t like anything either of them have seen before. Two neon rings circle in opposite directions of the floating orb, making their eyes sting to look at for more than a moment.

Burned-in vision of beauty aside, their attention is soon directed elsewhere, because it’s as Treasure Planet comes into view that a small squadron of ships comes up behind Lem and Devar’s, difficult to spot black, purple, and red against their sparkling trail and the dark of space.

“Lem,” Devar says.

“Isn’t this great? Aren’t you glad you c–”

“ _Lem_ ,” Devar says, “we’ve got a tail.” A shot goes flying past the hull, close enough that even inside it can be heard. “Okay, we’re flanked.” The sound of the blasters firing has Lem springing into action, finally, leaping forward to take the controls back from autopilot and jerk the ship away from the onslaught. As the enemy ships approach, Devar gets a better look at them: tiny ships, smaller than their own, each a single-person boat with a gunner at the front and the Heartless logo on the sails. Six of them total, three on each side, all piloted by indistinct figures with lidless yellow eyes.

“I think we might wanna come in for a landing, bud,” he says, reaching over to put his hand on Lem’s shoulder as they begin to pass over Treasure Planet itself.

“I–I’m trying to scout somewhere hospitable to land but I’m having trouble, there’s so much cover–damn it–” a stray shot from one of the right-hand ships grazes the side of the First Light and it dips downward drastically, both men hitting the arms of their chairs with a painful _thud._

“I think you might have to skip hospitality and go right for _available!_ ” Devar yelps, grabbing at the arm of the chair so he doesn’t go tumbling over it. Lem freezes for a second, then nods once, shallowly, before putting the  _First Light_ into a sharp descent. The Heartless ships follow for a tense moment, but, as they approach what appears to be the tops of a forest, seem to think better of it and peel off.

Of course, nobody ever praised an Archivist for their sense. Gaining speed, the two of them shout–half terror, half exhilaration–as they fumble with safety belts just in time to crash through the canopy and into peaty ground below.

They both pass out.

***

Devar is the first to wake, head and battered shoulder pounding, but by the grace of Samothes (and the seatbelt) intact. Taking quick inventory he notices little damage to the inside of the ship, minus some perfectly replaceable bottles of ink spilling across the tilted floor. He unbuckles himself with shaky hands and crosses the few steps to where Lem still sits slouched in the captain’s chair.

 _First order of business, bump on the forehead._ It looks like a wine stain on his olive-green skin; he must’ve struck the chair on impact. Other than that…

 _Wait_ , thinks Devar,  _did he change?_ Instead of his rumpled half-pajama ensemble from earlier, Lem is now in an impeccably-pressed uniform, a deep green jacket with gold epaulets, pearl-inlaid gold buttons, white trousers, and knee-high brown boots. Most of his storage space remains intact, though the extra belts look shabby strapped over the smart ensemble.

He does have to admit, though, that Lem looks good. _Really_ good. Devar reaches a hand out like he’s going to touch Lem’s chest, hovers his fingers over the pretty buttons–

Lem picks that moment to jolt back to consciousness. Devar pulls his hand back like he’s been scalded. “Oh–fuck, hey, I was just checking to see if you were, y’know, how you were doing, I–hey. Hey.” He flushes and clasps his hands behind his back, overly formal.

In response, Lem looks down, then back up, almost like he’s looking Devar over in turn. “Did… did you change?”

“Did I what? You got a concussion?”

“No, I–your clothes, Devar,” Lem says, fiddling with his seatbelt to unhook it. “Look at yourself.” Sure enough, Devar’s plain shirt and shorts are now a similar style to Lem’s current outfit, but sky blue, with silver accents.

“Oh. Well,” Devar replies, trying for nonchalant and landing just slightly south, “they did tell us about the wardrobe changes, huh. You, uh.” He looks hard at a smoldering spot on the floor, the intensity nearly willing it back to full flame. “You look good.”

“You too.” Up and about, if slightly unsteady, Lem gets down to business; out of their belongings, he extracts Devar’s spare notebook and pen (though he’d been offered more efficient technology, something about analog was always going to be more appealing) and the guitar, which, miraculously, hadn’t been damaged in the crash. Devar supposes that Lem secured their things with extra care, a kind of precision he hadn’t thought about the bard as possessing. “We… should travel light, probably,” Lem continues after a moment, “and use the ship as a sort of base, since it’s–not going anywhere. If it’s in an advantageous enough location, that is. We–”

“First time on a new planet,” Devar says; despite the apprehension building low in his stomach, he can’t stifle a smirk. “Might as well get out there and take a look.”

***

The door no longer seems to open when a button is pressed, but, between the two of them, Lem and Devar are able to pry it open and clamber out. Underneath their feet, the ground is springy, muddy ( _and we just got these boots, too,_ Devar thinks), reminds them a little of home, though neither of them would ever admit it. What’s odd, here, is that the things they mistook for trees aren’t trees at all, but giant white-stalked mushrooms growing up and around their crash site. Next to the _First Light_ is the downed cap of one of them; Devar pauses to scribble a crude drawing and some details before he allows Lem to press on.

“Uh, so,” Lem says, reaching into one of his pockets for his own set of notes, “The signal did come with coordinates, and I tried to set the ship on a course as close as possible, but as you can see… we didn’t quite make it. We’re–we’re close, though,” he adds, seeing the furrow in Devar’s brow, watches it uncrease at the reassurance.

“As long as we can fix the ship later,” he responds; to tell the truth, Devar finds himself captivated with the new scenery, stopping every couple hundred feet to make note of an unfamiliar bell-shaped plant, a four-winged bird, a…

Little… pink… creature?

The thing is almost in Devar’s face before he can register it’s there; he jerks backwards,tripping over himself as it keeps apace, and lands ass-first into the muddy ground. Next to him, Lem scrambles to pull his guitar off his back.

Once Devar can get his eyes to focus, he sees it in full–it’s only a few inches around, after all, a little amorphous ball with two bright eyes and what seems to be a small mouth. It’s gesticulating emphatically at Devar, liquid body forming arms to wave. He studies the blob for a moment–reaches down for his notebook without breaking eye contact with the thing, but thinks better of it, hand twitching between conflicting impulses–and lets out a shuddering breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“H...hello?”

He gets even more emphatic squeaking for his trouble.

“Is it trying to tell us something?” Lem squats next to Devar, rests a hand on his back–Devar leans into the touch, though he rolls his eyes at the obvious question. “And, uh–are you okay?”

“Stellar,” he mumbles, then, louder, “what’s up, bud? You know anything about some trouble?”

The thing, despite not possessing much in the way of a neck, nods–until it _does_ have a neck, somehow, turning from a transparent pink creature into a mini replica of Devar (while the real one, once again, rears back in surprise).

Devar suffers for a moment under warring impulses. The Archivist in him wants to take a million years to study this thing, catalogue its abilities, figure out its habitat, set up a placard nice and neat for some storage area somewhere in the castle so that others might read the information, might find it useful. Lem gives in to this impulse entirely, judging from the way he grabs the notebook out of Devar’s lap, starts frantically taking down dimensions.

The “person living in a society” part of him, on the other hand, watches the creature change from him, to a retinue of other figures, and finally, a murky black figure with lidless yellow eyes, holding an arrow pointing back the way it came. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, and when he removes them, the image remains, though he swears the color in the arrow pulses.

“I think it wants us to follow it,” he says, bracing himself; Lem rises easily from a squat and offers him a hand. (Devar tries not to think too hard about this and takes it.) “It… probably knows what we’re looking for. And–there could be people in danger. We gotta help.”

“I’d say so.” The wonder in Lem’s voice has Devar hiding a smile. The creature bouncing around them, back to what passes for a ‘regular’ form, has him grinning in full, turning to Lem eagerly.

“You got this down, right? Folks back home are gonna be–”

“ _So_ jealous,” Lem finishes, mirroring his grin. “But, uh, I think we have a job to do. Before all that.” The little creature speeds off into the thick of the forest; the two Archivists have to scramble to keep up.

***

The two of them follow the pink creature for some time, picking through brush and tree-trunk-like mushroom stalks, making little conversation for fear of missing something in the overgrowth. Over time, they can hear muffled voices grow louder; through the forest, shapes begin to emerge, and the creature pulls them along faster until they’re running, until they break out of the treeline gracelessly and stumble onto, presumably, the scene from the distress signal. Their guide shrinks back and hovers over Devar’s shoulder, turning from its translucent pink to Heartless matte black.

There is a cliff. Closer to the Archivists stands a young boy–no more than fifteen, sixteen–with an undercut and ragged bomber jacket. He has a white-knuckle grip on an old-school pistol and points it between the three figures on his other side, his arms trembling. One of the figures shoots him a wicked smirk; he bends his knees a little, plants his boots in the dirt, grips the gun tight enough that the cold metal’s gonna leave angry red imprints on his hands.

That, of course, will be useless against what lays before him. Flanking the person of interest on either side is, respectively: a very tall woman in a long black cloak, green-skinned like Lem, but sickly, pallid, clutching a long, severe staff, and, to its other side, a… dog…? Bear…? Man? In a pirate outfit. Devar notes that the woman must be the Maleficent they were supposed to watch out for, though he ignores the latter individual for a moment in favor of what seems to be the bigger issue.

Between them stands a massive creature–a head taller than even the imposing Maleficent, for sure. One half is a pulsating, grotesquely muscular shadowy mass, swirling around and grabbing at the other half, where Devar can see the shape of a man, but a gilded metal leg, an imposing prosthetic arm. It turns its gaze sharply from the boy, focusing a Heartless’s yellow eye and an intricate mechanical one in their direction.

“It seems,” Maleficent drawls, thumbing the rough wood of her staff, “That we have company.”

" _Get back!_ ” the boy shouts; it’s too late, though, because Lem is already pulling out the guitar again, fingers shaking as he plucks out a dangerous melody. Devar can hardly hear it over the pounding in his ears–he wants to retreat. This isn’t his bag, this is too fucked up, even for him, it’s–

Before he has time to run, the Heartless ambles forward with amazing speed, first knocking the boy into the brush with a sweep of the mechanical arm and then making a beeline for Lem. Devar’s frozen; his notebook hits the ground with a _thunk_ , he hears groaning from the kid in the underbrush behind him, and Lem  _isn’t moving either._

He finds his voice first. “Lem.”

“Just let me–”

“Oh, c’mon,” Devar moans, finally unsticking enough to slam into Lem from the side, knocking them both down and letting the monster charge past them without slamming them straight into the next world over. Lem goes down without a struggle, holds the guitar up and away to keep it out of danger.

“That would have worked,” he wheezes.

“We need to get out of here!” Devar pushes himself up and grabs Lem’s forearm, attempting to drag him back to his feet. “This ain’t our pay grade, man, we gotta split–”

“No.” Lem shakes him off and rises on his own, brushing mud off the seat of his pants. The creature rounds them, but doesn’t aim for another strike, instead padding back to Maleficent, who pats what she can reach of his unstable form.

“What do you mean, no–”

“Gentlemen,” Maleficent says, prim. The two wheel around to face her, half-forgotten in the argument. The boy’s hand emerges from their left, clawing, dragging the rest of his body behind.. “And Mister Hawkins–I told you what would happen if you were to get in our way,” she continues, voice raised enough to reach him where he’s fallen. “And you, newcomers–if you’ve arrived in hopes of the treasure, I’m afraid you’ll come up short. Mister Silver, our _dear leader_ , has taken on a bit more than he can chew, but is perfectly serviceable as a… _guard dog._ ”

“Hey,” says the dog-man, “Y’know, they say that cats are more loyal! We make _better_ guards!” Cat-man. Alright.

“ _Quiet,_ Pete,” she snaps. “We will be opening the portal and seeing this through. I suggest you make your exit.”

“Black _thing_ trying to swallow him,” gasps Hawkins, jumping to his feet as soon as he clears the dense plants, gun miraculously still in hand. “That’s not–he’s bad, but he’s not–” The thing roars in response and gears up to charge again, eye a laser sight on Hawkins’s chest.

“Lem, c’mon, can we please just get back to the ship, this could end so bad, we could–”

“I told you,” Lem snaps, exasperated, “you can go, but people are in danger.” He positions the guitar again and begins to play; Devar can feel him working at the pattern of this world, humming along with the tune under his breath. As the amalgamated Mister Silver pulls an arm back for a hit on Hawkins–who shoots once, ineffectively, right at the swallowing blackness, before scrambling back–it stops in its tracks.

“What did you _do_?” Maleficent whirls on Lem, the head of her staff glowing with a swirling mass of purple-black light.

“The technical term,” he says calmly, “is Semiotics, but most call it pattern magic, or, in this case, Stopga,” and she wastes no time now in blasting him with a spell that’s a little more… _harmful._ Lem cries out in pain and drops to a knee; Devar, rooted once again to the spot by Lem’s harsh tone, snaps back out of it, hoists him up.

“I told you guys this isn’t your problem,” Hawkins yelps, dodging two balls of energy from Maleficent before getting hit by a third and tossed aside once again.

“And _I_ told you two to  _l_ _eave._ ” All other distractions out of the way, Maleficent, silhouette of the stopped Silver behind her, makes a beeline for the Archivists, slow steps that make her cloak swirl out against the vibrant green grass, seeming to drain the life from it as she walks. “Now that you have spurned my advice, you will die. Painfully.”

Devar realizes that he has a decision to make.

Lem, clutching his ribs, is nearly dead weight. He’s entirely unable to fight, and running with him isn’t much of an option, running without even less so. Even so, he still stands, and he still has his brow furrowed in concentration, maintaining the stop spell. He’s giving Devar an opportunity.

He could beg for his life, but though Devar might not be the bravest Archivist–maybe that’s Lem King, if he isn’t just stupid–the guy’s got his pride.

Something solid begins to take shape in his hand, hot and bright and full in a shower of sparks. He thinks for a moment that Maleficent struck so fast he didn’t even have a chance to see. He thinks for a moment that he’s died, but Lem’s warm next to him, so that’s not right.

When he lifts up his hand, a long key like a sword rests with perfect balance in it. The blade and the teeth are a dark purple wrought metal, glimmering in the light; the grip is a duller silver, but with orcish tusk designs etched in, and off the end dangles a small bookmark like the one he’s got on his desk at the Castle, silver-painted card with a pink tassel.

From his side, he can hear Lem breathe out sharply in surprise, but the pounding in his ears hits a crescendo. Pete and Maleficent’s turn to flinch back. “Lem, I–I need you to trust me, okay?”

“Oh,” Lem says, “Okay?”

He lets go of Lem, who slumps to the ground without his support, and backs away. “I need you to launch me.”

Lem opens his mouth to say something, but thinks better of it and just nods.

Devar rushes Maleficent, then, keyblade sharp side-first in front of him, and as he passes Lem he hears faint lyrics on the wind–

 _But even through the bitter cold_  
_And through the sour air,_  
_There’s light in the Erasure, still–_

And the Aero spell grips him, lifts him off his feet; with the carried momentum he continues to hurtle forward. By the time he’s above Maleficent, Devar has his wits about him enough to be able to fire a quick Fire at her staff, scalding her hand, forcing her to drop the instrument to cradle it.

Behind her, Silver roars back to life, laser sight refocusing on Devar as his legs wheel through the air. He brings the keyblade up as it glints in the light, closes his eyes, and, just as he thinks he’s going to crash into the beast, close enough to see the pain in the human eye–

Devar shoves the keyblade as far into the inky monster possessing Silver as it’ll go, screaming the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TIL Pete is a cat


	3. Going Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a hero is rough work.

The thing about jumping a great height to land the final blow on a monster is that after that monster has perished–dissolved into sparkles, in this case–there is still the coming down to worry about. Devar feels, for a second, like time has frozen; he hangs in the air for a long second, arms still straight in front of him with the keyblade pointed triumphantly upwards.

Then he begins to fall.

It doesn’t take as long as he figured it would, given the circumstances–he’s always read that falls from great heights seemed to take hours, long enough to replay one’s whole life, figure out where it was that went wrong, and so on. This, however, is over almost immediately, and not least because Lem’s moved under him. _Showoff_ , he has time to think, before he crashes into the orc full-force. Unlike the gallant princes with unlimited upper body strength in stories, Lem is fallible; he impact sends them both sprawling, Devar on top of Lem, their faces close.

He’s not sure who laughs first. It’s probably him, high on adrenaline, the thing he just  _totally absolutely did_ , but he busts out laughing nonetheless, and the two of them are laughing together, and he just–he just kisses him, quickly, but surely, and the laughter peters out and the two of them just look at each other.

“You saved me. That was very brave,” Lem says, the same wonder in his eyes as when they took in the fauna of the new world.

“That was real _stupid_ ,” Devar shoots back, “but it worked, which, in your eyes, same diff. I…”

“You didn’t tell me you had a  _keyblade_!” Lem lets his hand flop to the ground, fingertips brushing the dark metal of the key where it lays next to the two of them, mostly forgotten. Devar spares a quick look at it.

“I, uh, didn’t know either. Guess this disqualifies me from scribery.”

“Not if you don’t want it to,” Lem responds. His breath is close enough to tickle Devar’s cheek. “You don’t ever have to use it again, but… it might… be nice if you gave it a name, at least.”

Devar sits back on his haunches and Lem follows him up; he’s sort of straddling Lem, now, and that thought makes him flush. “I… don’t know,” he starts, rubbing his arm gingerly. “Never been good at those, but–”

“What about Light at the Mark?” Lem’s response is quick, but quiet, and he bites his lip. “If–if you want, I don’t know if that’s–”

Startled, Devar laughs again, a single bark. He cups Lem’s cheeks. “That’s pretty good, Lem King.” He pulls him back in for a kiss, and the two of them sit like this for a long moment, alive, together,  _tired_.

“A- _hem,_ ” says Hawkins, brushing the dust off his jacket. The two of them stumble apart and back to their feet. “If you two are done… y’know.”

“We’re–shut up, kid,” Devar hisses, picking up Light at the Mark to brandish it in his direction menacingly. “I just  _saved_ your ass–”

“And as the one whose ass he just got saved from,” says a voice from the cliff side, gruff, “I’d thank you kindly to put the pointy end of that thing where Jimbo here can’t run ‘imself into it.” The familiar mechanical arm and leg step back into view, but what follows is more closely man-sized, even if he seems alien to Devar’s sensibilities. (One of the first things they learned upon arrival, however, is that even if people came in what they thought were all sorts in Hieron, they had a couple things coming to ‘em.)

Devar shifts the blade so that it’s pointing at the “new” guy. “Guessing you’re Silver?”

“Aye,” he says warily. “Sorry about that, I… wasn’t myself.”

“I’ll say!”

“Shut up, Jimbo,” he says, warning tone in his voice. Devar has to muffle a laugh behind his hand. “I… got carried away, no thanks to those two.” He gestures back at Pete and Maleficent, conversing heatedly on the cliffside in angry stage whispers. “They offered more power ‘n more treasure out of it, but as y’saw back there, it almost consumed me. Thanks… for helpin’ me realize there’s still light in this old dog’s heart.”

“Does this mean,” Jim says, shouldering past Devar and Lem, “you’re gonna stop with the villain stuff and leave the treasure be?”

“Heavens no,” Silver says, “but we’re gonna do this fair ‘n square.  _PETE! MALEFICENT! YOU TWO ARE IN FOR IT NOW!”_ Though Maleficent seems to be attempting to open a dark portal with her staff, broken as it is it’s not working; she and her accomplice shrink back as Silver stomps over to give them a “stern talking-to.”

Devar brushes his fingers against Lem’s; they clasp hands. “Uh… Jim, yeah? You wouldn’t happen to be able to fix our ship, would y–”

Something whirs to life; with it, a portal is opened, not dark but golden-green and shining, flicks between worlds until it settles on one brimming with treasure. Jim seems pulled between it and them for a moment, then, running towards the portal, yells over his shoulder “Doctor Doppler ‘n the Captain can help you out! They’re on the way back!”

Silver and Jim disappear into the portal; Maleficent and Pete, on the other hand, do not get up.

“Nothing for it,” Lem says. “Back through the weird mushroom forest.”

***

Getting off-world is actually the easy part, even once the shaking starts. It turns out that this Doctor Doppler, a thin, tired-looking dog man, was the one who sent the signal in the first place; though he’s surprised to see two grown men, and not a grown mouse, he seems pleased with their report, and with the fact that Lem uses his knife to cut him and his companion free.The apparent leader of the endeavor, one Captain Amelia, presses coin into their hand that they’re honestly too nervous to refuse, and they’ve got a serviceable lifeboat off of the Captain’s ship within the hour.

On the ride back, they don’t talk about what happened much–mostly small things, what they’ll purchase with the money, who’s gonna be waiting to kick their asses once they touch down. Even though Devar shouted himself hoarse, and the guitar’s wildly out of tune, they sing a little. Eventually, tucked in with the storage so they won’t slide around the ship, they fall asleep curled around each other until the ship docks back in the Disney Castle garage.

This late, even Chip and Dale are asleep; their room is an offshoot of the garage, and the door is closed. Lem wakes Devar, cups his cheek. “We’re… we’re back. It’s morning, I think.”

“Hey,” Devar says.

“Hey,” Lem echoes absently. He presses his lips to Devar’s before pulling himself to his feet and offering Devar his hand once more. “I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow…”

“Think you mean today,” Devar mumbles, taking it. “Wanna head back to my room?”

Lem stares blankly.

“I–oh, oh man, not like that, I just–it’s _closer_ –” Devar shoves at his shoulder. “Shut up, I just wanna go back to bed. If I can, after all that.”

“Me too,” Lem responds with a grin. “Your room sounds fine. Maybe you can transcribe some of your notes, if you can’t sleep…”

“Might as well get them down before Hadrian and Hella kill us for breaking their ship,” Devar agrees. “Hey, maybe I can even work that into my novel. I was looking for a title, too, and I might call it, like…  _Treasure Island…_ ”

The two of them wake up half of Devar’s neighbors, joking on the way back to his room, but it’s their fault for sleeping in. All the fun seems to happen in the early morning.


End file.
